Love
by Lusalma
Summary: When someone dies, where do they go? Do they remember, do they feel? What happens after? Harry might just find out.


Authors Note:

I have decided to just go for it and write a story. I will be writing Harry Potter (since it is so frequently used) but I am not an obsessive story reader of Harry Potter or nitpicker for the story characters and actions so it might be AU and it might have inconsistencies. If the story does not comply with cannon you can tell me in review and I will choose to change it or not if it fits in the story. I am still working on several stories (and nursing school) so I will be slow updates, if at all.

THIS WILL BE YAOI! BOYXBOY! HOMOSEXUAL ACTION!

THE IDEAS OF THE HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE IS NOT MINE- IT IS J. K. ROWLING. I am putting this disclaimer up to prevent misunderstandings. The ideas of OC characters are mine but everything else is not.

When a human being is born they come into the world wet, squalling, naked, cold, and in pain. If they are lucky they will not leave in the same way.

Harry was not so lucky.

About 76 years after the final battle, and about 75 years after he graduated his 8th year of Hogwarts Harry James Evans Potter-Black was finally breathing his last- naked, cold, wet, and in pain.

He didn't plan to leave the world like this. His great-grandchildren from his dearly departed Ginny shouldn't have to find him in this way when this was all said and done. Well, at least he thought they would be the ones to find him since they were supposed to come visit him at his house for his 94th birthday in just 4 hours.

Harry actually considered it to be kind of silly that he would go in this manner. After all he had survived that evil psychopath Voldewort and then his fanatical Death Munchers retaliation attempts. They didn't touch him of course- he had the privilege of being trained by several groups of the most vicious fighters he could find alongside the most brilliant mind of his generation and the most strategic chess master of the world (as Ron proved at 34 in the Muggle world's leading chess master match of 2014 in London, England)- so of course those pathetic attempts didn't faze him, but that couldn't be said the same for his departed wife Ginny.

Ginny was his Hogwarts sweetheart and just like was expected of him, he married her right out of Hogwarts.

But just as usually happened to young couples that married in their late teen years he and Ginny really didn't know each other, and really didn't know themselves.

Ginny had married Harry while he was still going to Masters College in London, England and she was about a month out of her 7th year of Hogwarts. Not too soon after she was already popping out his first son – Albus Severus Potter. She kept popping them out every two years like clockwork till she died in 2008 after birthing his last son, one Draco Neville Potter. Her death occurred due to the continued stupidity of the Ministry of Magic and the laziness of the Mediwizards which allowed Dementors to pop into the Maternity ward of St. Mungos and suck out the souls of 54 infants and mothers, including Ginny's.

Of course Harry had a field day suing St. Mungos and ended up owning over 74% of St. Mungo's stock thanks to help from the goblins and some very greedy solicitors. This ended up being a good thing not much later down the road of life. It was a good thing mostly due to the Civil War of Britain in 2033 over the sudden 'appearance' of Wizards and Witches among the muggles (aka: non-magicals) in the Saturday Night Live TV series. Harry did _not_ appreciate Fred and George Weasley 'expanding' their business and laughter into the muggle world or mundanes as they preferred to be called nowadays. Harry didn't think they really expected such a huge reaction when they appeared beside their longtime friend Lee Jordan as he was giving an interview of his coming attractions at Magic Amusement Park, but then again, they never did really know what a television was for or what it really did.

Harry suddenly wished that he had spent less time trying to save and repair a permanently damaged world such as wizarding Britain and had instead concentrated on his children's lives and keeping his friends closer than his enemies. Maybe then he wouldn't be tied, naked and cold and wet and in pain, to this sacrificial alter all alone in this dark, dreary house.

Maybe then he wouldn't be wondering how in the world his long-time dead dearly departed Ginny was at fault for somehow killing him from beyond the grave. Or at least that was what the insane homeless wanna-be wizard was muttering under his breath. Something about, "wonderful Gin-Gin….Going to love you harder! ...Everything is going to be just fi….Ginnny, love wh…" and other such nonsense ramblings that didn't make too much sense to Harry at this point in time.

Harry really didn't try that hard though, it was getting kind of hard to think with dizziness and fog floating through his mind, probably due to whatever drug the guy dosed him with…and maybe due to blood loss from the same guys inexpert skinning of his arms and chest.

Harry never did like the scars on his arms that came from the war and that stupid basilisk fang but at least he could see the scars before, now there was only red meat and dripping blood.

'Well, at least he hasn't touched my waist or anything below…actually I shouldn't have thought about that.'

Harry contemplated the fact that he really should have updated his will because by the end of this night he would no longer be in this world.

Just as Insane-Homeless Dude started digging into his forearm with that stupid little pocketknife Harry regretted being so paranoid in his old age, paranoid of all the wrong things.

If Harry had kept his friends and family closer than his enemies he would have enjoyed life more. He would have been able to honestly say at the end, which he was at now, that his life was worth something to someone. Something beyond money, something beyond his common sense actions that anyone should have done, something that would have had those he loved think of him with something other than loneliness and 'who was he?' 5-10 years after his funeral.

And while he and Ginny never really became very close beyond the perfunctory escorts and thin surface niceties Harry thought that he had at least loved Ginny…if only a little.

But if Ginny was why he was here now, than it doesn't look like she loved him very much at all.

Harry knew Ginny cheated on him, he knew that when she would say that she was going to be taking a business trip to Australia or Ethiopia that she was really going to visit one of her paramours from France or Germany or Italy. He didn't really begrudge her that, she used her own money to do so (he checked) and at least she kept it safely hidden from the family…unlike some marriage couples he could talk about. Harry understood, to a degree. But he still had routinely called her on her infidelity and they had, like clockwork, gone to the Mind Healers of St. Mungo's or the Priests of Raah or even among their mutual friends to help heal the breech between them. But Ginny would always get restless again; she would start leaving for longer and longer periods of time that would then eventually escalate to infidelity.

However, Harry loved her. Harry loved his beautiful children Ginny gave him and while they were not all his (again, he checked) they were still _his_.

But through all the war and through all the pain and heart ache and soul deep searching that was brought from fighting and adulteration and the trials of living, Harry had found one thing to be true. Harry could never stop loving.

Dumbledore had been right and wrong. Once Harry started loving it was his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

Dumbledore was also right in the fact that his parents love was what saved him at the beginning and his friend's love that saved him in the end.

Dumbledore was wrong though in that Harry's 'magic power' was love. Harry's 'magic power' was his luck and his stupid, persistent instinct to always survive. After all, Harry doesn't love _everyone_ he just loves eternally those that he feels love for.

'Just look at Ginny,' Harry thought bitterly as he hissed a pain soaked breath through his teeth as yet another strip of bloody flesh was ripped from his body, 'though I tried to love her as best I could and as well as I could, she still always went back to those faceless men, those strangers who use her and leave her in a few days. Those same men that she used to scream at me made her feel wanted and special. She was special, I loved her. But I guess it wasn't enough,' Harry admitted.

'But does my failing to satisfy Ginny necessitate this type of punishment?' Harry could just imagine those moronic head bobbling of the sheeple of Wizarding Britain.

Now, maybe Harry was being too harsh. The wizarding public has gotten smarter and has attained more common sense since the British Civil War, they had to in order to survive extended contact with the mundanes, but Harry believed that there must be something in magic itself that causes the practitioners of magic to lose all frontal lobe activity after several years of exposure or use. Because even at 93 years old Harry was still the hottest topic of magazines and newspapers, now not only in Britain but the entire Magical World. Now Harry might be the richest person on the planet, including mundanes, but the wizarding world wouldn't know that. After all Harry sealed all his heirlooms and wealth and knowledge in a chain on his ankle in order to avoid losing any to the vengeful hands of the goblins long, long ago. Now he and goblins were on better relations but Harry guessed that keeping the majority of his possessions on his person was now just a very strong habit, so strong that it might as well be the Runes tattooed on his flesh...

Harry suddenly gasped in pain as a thick, surprisingly sudden whiplash of red agony seared across his senses.

Gasping quietly through the agony Harry heard a demented cackling not far from his panting form and the pop and hisses as something wet and heavy was slapped onto what sounded like a fire.

After a couple of minutes of sizzle and the sweetly sick stench of what seemed to be roast pork wafted through the air Harry finally was able to get his breathing under control and finally closed his eyes.

Acknowledging the fact that for the past couple of minutes he had been able to successfully distract himself from the ongoing torture he could now not help but feel how heavy his limbs felt and how more and more tired he felt as he approached the precipice of Death. After all Harry has been at that point many times in the past, it comes with being a survivor and dealing with bloody violent mood swings all the time.

Several minutes of peacefully floating bliss was interrupted as something wet and cold and smelly was smeared over his face and upper chest. Harry gagged at the uniquely vile filth and then started choking as the Insane Dude (Harry never did learn his name) shoved several globs of what tasted like rancid diarrhea into his mouth.

Harry never did stop choking.

Several hours later, about 5 hours and 23 minutes to be exact, Harry's great-grandchildren finally arrived in front of #12 Grimmauld Place in London, England en mass. Of those 63 present it was a little girl of 3 years old that was curious enough and disrespectful enough of the Harry-King-Of-Magic that followed what seemed to be the sickly sweet stench of burnt pork into the very bottom most room. There she found the blackened and contorted mess of who she later found to be her Great-Grandfather Harry Potter-Black.

But all she could do at that exact point in time was scream.


End file.
